Mother challenges child abortion rules

[monkeytrousers]

here

I disagree. I don't think it is mad at all.

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I think one problem is young teens lack of thought of the potential consequences of sex ie disease, pregnancy.Does sex seem a much more attractive option if parents don't need to know even if pregnancy and then abortion follow? I'm all for better sex ed , am unsure about confidentiality and contraceptive advice but am against abortions without parental consent/consultation

That you have to be asked if it's OK to put a plaster on? (NB I didn't say she was right about abortion!)

Ok Northender, an intelligent young Asian girl who hopes to go to university and become a doctor in the next few years, turns up at a clinic, pregnant. She is 15. She fears she may be killed if her parents find out she is pregnant. Would you tell her parents?

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At school, the administration of a paracetamol or a bandage is done by a teacher/ first aider or at best by a nurse. There is not the same duty of confidentiality between a teacher and a pupil, as between a doctor (or nurse) and their patient.

And how many Mumsnetters have got pregnant by accident!

and, if a nurse said to a child, I'll have to ask your Mum if I can give a paracetamol, the child would say "OK"- no problem. This is a completely different issue, where the child/ adolescent demands and deserves confidentiality.

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The thing with teenagers is that they have real probelms linking cause and effect. the reason being the frontal cortex, that does this, is that last area of the brain to fully mature. the limbic system, that deals with the emotions matures earlier, which is why everything gets so intense dueing the teenage years. Put those two things together and you can see why teenagers are so prone to risk taking behaviour.

They 'know' that it isn't going to happen to them

Quite how yousolve this, I'm not sure, but providing open, honest, realistic information would seem like a good start.

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Yes but why can't the child give its own consent for the paracetamol?

a child can give their own consent for paracetamol, the school are just covering their backs- after all, unless specifically mentioned by the parents, they wouldn't know if the child had an allergy or had already had a dose that morning.

I used to carry a supply around in my school bag any way- to deal with period pains without having to get permission to go oout of class to the sick room.

I really wonder about the motivation of the woman trying this appeal. Is she trying to make herself feel better about an abortion she clearly regrets (showing that adults too can make decisions they regret) or is she trying to protect her children? I like many would feel that a good relationship with my children is the only way to try to protect them, and recognise that I may fail, and that they may legitimately chose to talk to someone else - what I care about is that someone is there for them - it doesn't have to be me.
There are a couple of things I would want to say, I think, firstly most abortions are medical, and do not involve operations (you may have what feels like an extra heavy period from an early chemical abortion), secondly that it is nuts that teachers etc are not allowed to give simple medicines (although I am not entirely sure that is really true), thirdly that older teenagers are much more involved in decisions about medical treatment (for example transplants, chemotherapy etc) that they used to be, and finally teenagers are given a lot of counceling, and encouraged to talk to their parents, but this should be their choice (oh and if there are any concerns about rape, or undue pressure they are obliged to inform social services, and in future may be required to report any child reporting underage sex (I think this is actually under 13) to the police, which is a big concern at present, with significant worries that this will prevent children from approaching services).

I don't wish for my children to be sexually active before they are old enough to really understand the consequences (maybe in their twenties/thirties ) but I do recognise that it happens, and not just to "bad" parents

Exactly.

I agree with Nooka.

Good points, well made Nooka.

My understanding is that I should report under 16 sex to the SMT of the school. If I don't it is a failure on my part.

I have to say the 'parental consent' thing worries me to a certain degree. If a 15 year old gets pg and wants an abortion but her parents won't give legal consent(or vice versa, how can it be right for them to be able to force her to carry and give birth to a child or terminate if she wants to keep it?

I think it's a bit unfair to assume that a normal non commumative teen would hide something as big and scary as pregnancy just to be contrary! It's not quite the same thing as having secretive puffs behind the bikeshed, or sharing a bottle of cheapo lambrusco with your mates in the park...

Me for one. There are so many different sets of circumstances to consider here. How scared would you have to be of your mum/family not to feel able to tell them? Maybe some would be overreacting and their family would be very understanding. But for others the consequences could be absolutely horrendous - homelessness, massive lifelong guilt whatever they do (which might be the case anyway), forced to have a child they couldn't cope with, death etc. etc. I think a law covering everyone on this would be a terrible mistake. Ours is meant to be an enlightened liberal society. Of course this means mistakes can be made but that is unavoidable. I just HATE people forcing their views on others.

I must say that the thought of parents effectivly blocking a girl having a termination (if that is her informed choice) is rather scary. I think it could open up all sorts of very nasty and abusive senarios

nooka, DS1 is 17 and on a school trip last month we had to sign a medical information form that said specifically that it was OK for him to have paracetamol - for things like asthma inhalers or other routine medication we just had to say that the child would bring them.

Sorry, didn't mean to digress into a thing about paracetamol/confidentiality, I just think that if a child is old enough to get pregnant and decide to have an abortion she is also old enough to remember whether she has an allergy to plaster or has already had a dose of paracetamol recently.

If a 15 yr old gets pregant and wants an abortion, and if the doctor(s) is/ are satisfied that she understands the implications, she does not need parental consent. End of story. If she wants to keep the baby , they can't force her to have a termination. End of story. In these situations, the courts get involved.

I think that many teenagers (like the rest of us really, but more so) do not believe that it will happen to them, despite the provision of information. This is human nature, I just think we are not good at weighing up risks. Or maybe what feels like the high risk of your boyfriend dumping you, or not keeping up with your peers, seems worse than what seems like the unreal (unimaginable?) possibility of getting pregnant. I don't think that the provision of contraception/abortions has very much to do with this. But then we also forget that some teenagers actually wish to get preganant (although obviously these ones are not relevent to this debate). I would hate now, and when I was a teenager too, for my mother to have been told anything intimate about me at all, and it would certainly have put me off seeking advice, should I have needed it, if I thought she would find out. However I had other adult friends and family who I would have been happy to turn too.